A new survey by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes to reinforce the idea that lack of sleep or too many hours of sleep contributes to our health’s deterioration.

According to the federal agency, an estimated 50 to 70 million people suffer from constant sleep loss or sleep disorders. Besides having trouble at work, health experts warn that chronic sleep loss is often linked with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cardiovascular disease, depression, cigarette smoking, and excessive drinking.

The National Sleep Foundation, a Washington-based organization that studies sleep and sleep disorders, sustains that adults should sleep at least seven hours a night, children ages 5 to 12 should get 9 to 11 hours, while adolescents need 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours.

The new study, based on a door-to door survey of 87,000 U.S. adults from 2004 through 2006, revealed that among adults 18 and older who slept 7 to 8 hours a night, only 18 percent were current cigarette smokers, compared to over 30 percent of adults who slept less than six hours a night.

Lack of sleep also resulted in obesity, according to the study, which found that about 33 percent of those who slept less than six hours were obese, as were 26 percent of those who got nine hours or more. Only 22 percent of those sleeping the recommended amount of time were obese.

Moreover, those sleeping the least were the biggest drinkers, but this is not relevant, as alcohol use was similar for those getting 7, 8 or 9 hours of sleep.

Smoking, overeating and lack of exercise are factors normally associated with onset of metabolic syndrome.

“The whole health promotion climate now tells us that we know what we need to be doing -- we need to be not smoking, we need to be exercising, we need to be controlling our weight and limiting our alcohol use and all of these things contribute to a healthy lifestyle -- and all are linked to a less sleep,” Charlotte Schoenborn, a health statistician with the National Health Interview Survey of the CDC who led the survey said, as quoted by the United Press International.

A similar survey released by the National Sleep Foundation on March found that Americans are not getting enough sleep due to increased workload. The lack of sleep was a result of workers putting in longer hours, in part due to increased pressure from employers to ramp up productivity. Surprisingly, lack of sleep led to opposite effects such as no productivity, impatience with others and difficulty concentrating on job tasks. The study also blamed technology for people’s lack of sleep, as things such as cell phones and e-mail keep employees constantly connected to their job.